Shadow Comrades
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Tag to "Regeneration". Denobulans don't have nightmares. They hallucinate. That doesn't mean they have to go through it alone.


Shadow Comrades

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Enterprise_

Copyright: Paramount

 _We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile …_

Phlox curled up on his bunk inside his quarters. He could feel the nanoprobes working, second by second, turning him into a machine, eating up everything that made him who he was, like flies swarming a corpse. Already he was seeing the steel-gray walls, the blue blankets, even the rainbow tapestry hand-sewn by his third wife, in a poisonous green.

The beeping of the door signal stabbed through his mind like a knife. He ignored it.

"Phlox?" It was Hoshi. "Are you there? I brought you dinner."

Dinner? His stomach growled. How long was it since he'd eaten? Oh yes. He'd been trying to slow down his metabolism so he could slow down the nanoprobes. The voice of the hive mind was silenced as he remembered the events of the past few hours. He'd immersed himself in toxic radiation, hadn't he? The nanoprobes were gone. He was safe.

"Come in."

Hoshi came in, stepping as softly as she could in her boots, carrying a tray. "How are you doing?"

"Ensign, I should warn you - " He struggled for words. Much as he appreciated her offer to look after him, she couldn't have come at a worse time. How long would his lucid interval last? What if the hallucinations came back while she was still there?

Not for the first time, he envied humans their ability to sleep. If he could ignore all his psychological waste products until he fell unconscious, process them in dreams, and wake up with no memories of it beyond a few fragments, it would be so much easier.

"Warn me about what?" asked Hoshi.

A Borg drone loomed behind her. Phlox screamed.

"What's wrong?" Hoshi's ponytail flew as she whipped around. "What is it?"

"They're still here!"

Phlox stumbled out of bed. The radiation made his arms and legs feel stuffed with lead, but adrenaline forced him forward. He grabbed Hoshi's shoulder, pushed her sideways, and planted himself between her and the drone. "Get back, Ensign! I'll distract him."

He could hear her making sounds of disbelief. Didn't she see the metal monster right in front of them? It reached out a cybernetic arm, tubules extended. Phlox punched it aside. His arm muscles screamed with the effort. Before the drone could try again, Phlox grabbed Hoshi's hand and was out the door.

"We can't fight it," he said breathlessly. "Run!"

"Where?" she gasped.

"Sickbay. Radiation."

"Got it."

The drone stalked after them, steady, pitiless. He could hear it. _We are the Borg …_

"Here!" Hoshi handed him something. "Use this phaser."

"They're useless, remember?"

"Not this one. It's, um – Lieutenant Reed upgraded it. It's got a rotating frequency."

Clever. That way, the drone wouldn't be able to adapt. Phlox whirled, squinted against impending dizziness, and let Hoshi hold him up by his free arm as he aimed with the other.

The phaser buzzed. A thin red beam of light struck the drone mid-step. It stopped, stared at them blankly with its cybernetic eye … and fell backwards.

The phaser dropped from Phlox's shaking hand. He sagged against the wall.

"Are you all right now?" Hoshi's voice was high and tense. "Is it gone?"

He blinked hard. The drone had disappeared. A crewman passed by the spot where it had lain seconds before, making an obvious effort not to stare. Hoshi squeezed his arm. When he met her black eyes, he saw that they were wide with fear and concern.

"The phaser … " he began, not knowing how to ask. He had removed all potentially harmful items from his quarters after taking leave, in case of hallucinations, but he had to make sure.

"It's – it's okay." Hoshi picked it up and handed it to him. "You didn't hurt anyone." The "upgraded weapon" was a spoon.

He looked at it, then at her. "Well! If that's the best Lieutenant Reed can come up with … " They shared exhausted little bubbles of laughter.

"Is … this … what you were about to warn me about?" asked Hoshi.

"Yes." Along with sanity came embarrassment. "I told you Denobulans hallucinate to work off stress. I don't do it often but … "

"Do what you have to do." Hoshi, who couldn't sleep when her cabin faced the wrong way, who was afraid of the transporter and unexpected engine noises, squared her shoulders and looked him right in the eye. "You rescued me, didn't you? And you'd have done the same thing if it were real."

"Indeed I would."

"So … I thought the least I could do was stay with you."

"You certainly did." He patted her hand. "You're the finest - " He used the Denobulan word, trusting she'd understand. "Shadow-comrade a man could ask for."

"It is my honor to be admitted to your shadow-world," she replied, in the flawless Denobulan he had taught her. Switching to English, she added: "Come on, Doc, your egg drop soup's getting cold."

"Egg drop soup! What are we waiting for? Help an old man back to his quarters, would you?"

She slung his arm over her small shoulders and steered him back to his door. The spicy alien smell of his favorite Earth food greeted them as they entered. He couldn't decide which need was most imperative: to lie in bed not moving a single muscle, or to eat until he popped. He hadn't felt this miserable since his days as a combat medic.

Still, he wouldn't change this moment for all of Denobula. No longer would he walk the shadow-world alone.


End file.
